{"id":360586,"date":"2026-09-30T08:06:21","date_gmt":"2026-09-30T08:06:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/360586\/"},"modified":"2026-09-30T08:06:21","modified_gmt":"2026-09-30T08:06:21","slug":"fallen-nyc-wine-seller-sherry-lehmann-loses-suit-that-alleged-smear-campaign-by-nyt-journo-former-execs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/360586\/","title":{"rendered":"Fallen NYC wine seller Sherry-Lehmann loses suit that alleged smear campaign by NYT journo, former execs"},"content":{"rendered":"

A federal judge on Tuesday dismissed a bizarre lawsuit <\/a>by defunct New York City wine shop Sherry-Lehmann accusing its former owners and a prize-winning journalist of conspiring to smear the company, according to court flings.<\/p>\n

Sherry-Lehman \u2014 which shuttered its iconic Park Avenue store in 2023 amid lawsuits from multiple customers who said they never received wine they\u2019d paid for \u2014 tried to lay the blame for its demise on New York Times scribe James B. Stewart and several former CEOs of the company.<\/p>\n

Iconic Park Avenue Wine shop Sherry-Lehmann closed for good in 2023. James Keivom<\/p>\n

The retailer argued that Stewart and the previous execs stood to gain from the alleged smear campaign and thus violated the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization, or RICO, Act \u2014 a statute known for being used in anti-mafia cases.<\/p>\n

In dismissing the case in Manhattan, US District Judge Andrew Carter said, \u201cSherry-Lehmann is unable to articulate one of the key elements of RICO,\u201d that Stewart and the former execs \u2014 Chris Adams, Michael Yurch and previous owner Michael Aaron \u2013 engaged in racketeering activity.<\/p>\n

Prior to Tuesday\u2019s decision, Sherry-Lehmann\u2019s attorney John Balestriere asked the court to quit the case because of \u201csubstantial outstanding legal fees,\u201d according to filings. The request was granted, and the judge gave Sherry-Lehmann 30 days to get new legal representation.<\/p>\n

The dismissed suit claimed that the Pulitzer-Prize winning Stewart wrote \u201cdamaging false information about Sherry-Lehmann\u201d and \u201corchestrated\u201d a smear campaign with other news outlets \u2013 including The Post \u2013 and the former execs.<\/p>\n

Journalist and author James B. Stewart was sued by Sherry-Lehmann for his reporting on Sherry-Lehmann. Getty Images<\/p>\n

Stewart\u2019s alleged goal was to \u201cgarner a Pulitzer Prize\u201d for his reporting on the downfall of the century-old retailer, according to the complaint.<\/p>\n

The suit singled him out for a May 25, 2023 article<\/a> reporting that some of the wine belonging to the company\u2019s storage customers had been illegally sold to others. Sherry-Lehman denied that in the complaint.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The store claimed that \u201ccorrupt, self-serving journalists,\u201d along with former executives, managers, retail and union employees, were all seeking to \u201cinflict the maximum amount of pain\u201d on the current owners of the business, Kris Green and Shyda Gilmer.<\/p>\n

Aaron, whose family founded Sherry-Lehman, Yurch and Adams are being sued in a separate lawsuit filed in 2023 by Sherry-Lehmann\u2019s landlord Glorious Sun<\/a>, which claims they are liable for unpaid rent on the store.<\/p>\n

Shyda Gilmer was the co-owner of Sherry-Lehmann when it closed for good in 2023. NYPost<\/p>\n

The three former executives argued that they severed ties with the business long before its decline and have no stake in it, according to court documents.<\/p>\n

In its suit, Sherry-Lehmann argued that the negative media attention resulted in law enforcement, including the FBI and and US Postal inspectors, raiding its swanky Park Avenue store<\/a> and its storage business<\/a>, Wine Caves, in Pearl River, NY.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The raids in 2023 and 2024 resulted in canceled orders from customers, and potential acquirers, according to the complaint.<\/p>\n

Kris Green was the most recent co-owner of the famed wine shop. Kris Green\/Instagram<\/p>\n

Best known for his 1991 book \u201cDen of Thieves\u201d about the Michael Milken insider trading scandal, Stewart won a Pulitzer in 1987 for his coverage of the stock market crash while working for the Wall Street Journal.<\/p>\n

Aaron and Adams declined to comment, while Stewart and Yurch did not immediately respond. Gilmer and Green could not be reached.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A federal judge on Tuesday dismissed a bizarre lawsuit by defunct New York City wine shop Sherry-Lehmann accusing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":360587,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[288,24224,24225,3100,9,980,56,63,65,64,8983],"class_list":["post-360586","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-business","tag-fbi-investigations","tag-landlord-tenant-disputes","tag-lawsuit","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-times","tag-ny","tag-nyc","tag-nyc-headlines","tag-nyc-news","tag-wine"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/360586","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=360586"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/360586\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/360587"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=360586"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=360586"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=360586"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}